Friday Catch Up
April is here. A cold, kinda rainy, kinda snowy April. This month has two concert dates that I'm looking forward to: Alestorm and Cannibal Corpse/Amon Amarth. I saw Amon Amarth for the first time last August with Ghost, and I don't think I've ever seen Alestorm or Cannibal Corpse. A fortuitous month hopefully.
What I've Been Watching.
I really enjoyed the first season of Interview With The Vampire. This adaption (to me) is so well done with narrative choices (aging Claudia up, tweaking Louis' background, moving the initial era forward) and the casting is just superb. I'm curious about what could happen if more of the Vampire Chronicles novels are going to be explored in Interview With The Vampire's run and what that means for Lestat's music career. Would Lestat be a tiktok guy, would he be that hipster guy with the acoustic guitar and flannel in the early 2010s, or would he be re imagined as a sort Vessel or Sleep Token type band?
Anyways, I'm so very excited for the next season in May of the messiest exes and lovers show.
Armand, what the fuck are you doing buddy?
The other incredibly campy, theatrical, over the top thing I'm stoked about is the Ghost movie. Last year during the Re-Imperatour the two L.A. shows were phones free because they were shooting parts of the mysterious Ghost movie. It sounded really cool from everything I've heard, especially because Twenties was debuted there, and there was an apparently beautiful version of If You Have Ghosts with a cellist. I don't know really what to expect from it. Maybe it'll be something like Deathgasm (ridiculous horror metal movie) or something like Army Of The Doomstar (the end of something and appreciation of fans) or something more like how Electric Callboy plays with genre for their tour vlogs.
Here's the tiniest of trailers.
Perhaps the rat man will finally bite it.
We finished The Unsleeping City, and I suggested we try a Court of Candy to watch next. It has been a wild, wild ride jumping from the Unsleeping City's magical realism to more of a Game of Thrones unexpected brutality and no good choices. There are some absolute little comedic gems in it. Mostly it's tragic. Which isn't bad, it's really well done. It's just the genre. I love Ally Beardsley's character Liam Wilhelmina (he is the most socially awkward, 17 year old Duke) and is mostly incapable of flirting. We just got past one big event, and this was a hilarious little nugget.
It's hot right? Just two guys fighting in the misty morning?
What I've Been Reading
I like it when writers share their process or reasoning behind what choices they make narratively. Premee Mohamed makes really interesting, bold narrative choices in how she writes and this is a really neat interview about The Siege of Burning Grass. This part about writing horror stories resonated loud (for me) what do you do when you have to fight but against an opponent that you know you can't defeat?
The 2023 Hugo Awards controversy has just been a whole lot. There's much that needs to be done in terms of rebuilding trust from writers/editors/fans going forward, and Glasgow Worldcon is making valiant attempts. I really like John Scalzi's nuance in writing about the Hugos this year as a nominee from both last year and this year.
There are so many parts of this interview between Trent Reznor and David Dastmalchian that I enjoyed. I love how they reminisce about their addictions, about storytelling as craft, loneliness, and feeling like huge fuck ups because of lost time. I adore how they uplift each other (like friends do), and ultimately reflecting on what moves them now that they're older.
Small Mammal Update
Empress Yaga Stir Fry, first of her name, biter of hands and toes, and the unstoppable object is the oldest small mammal that lives with me. I actually think that other than Gir (he lasted 12 ish years) she is the one creature I've had the longest continuous relationship with. She is an Empress, she has handpicked Delphine as her eventual successor, she leads raids against Zorya in her county, and is not afraid to walk into hell backwards in taking on dogs.
I love her, and I have learnt the most important lesson ever with kittens: never, ever play attack hands wearing oven mitt armour when they are small because this is how they grow up to be adorable finger assassins.
What I've Been Working On
Writing about The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, finishing the intro into the post apocalyptic series, and writing about Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
